


A Tale Of Motherhood

by Leni



Series: The Kindness of Strangers [4]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-01-06
Packaged: 2019-03-01 04:25:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13286934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leni/pseuds/Leni
Summary: In a different world, Belle meets Fiona.





	A Tale Of Motherhood

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NropaY_OneEye](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NropaY_OneEye/gifts).



> @nropay asked: Belle + Fiona, anxious. Drabble-fic, 22 x 100

For the sixth time in as many nights, Belle awoke with a startled gasp.

"There, there," said her husband while he gathered her closer, his hands gentle yet sure as they swept over her arms in a reassuring manner. "You are safe now, Belle. You are at home, and I'm right here for you."

The words dispelled the last of the cloud of fear under which Belle had struggled as she woke. With a small whimper, she curled into his warmth, able to fit herself within the curve of his body despite her bulkier frame.

"Sweetheart, what's happening to you?"

*

Belle forced her teeth to stop rattling. "I don't know."

Rumpelstiltskin brought up the covers she'd kicked off, bundling them about her before his hand settled protectively on her midsection. "This isn't like you."

Belle shivered one last time. She was at a loss as well. If anyone was plagued with nightmares, it was Rumpelstiltskin, and their roles were usually reversed as she soothed him. "It's the same dream," she told him helplessly. "I just can't do anything about it."

Rumpelstiltskin hesitated. He was aware of her dislike of using magic for simple matters. "I might know of a solution."

*

"The magic is its own," he told her, holding a medallion. "It allows the wearer control over their dreams."

"And the price?" Belle asked, because having broken from the Dark One's influence had not moved her husband's stance on the subject.

Rumpelstiltskin chuckled, eyes twinkling with amusement. "That it be allowed power over dreams."

Belle thought that over, then giggled. "Quite the benevolent piece."

"Unless you feed it too often," he warned, a reminder that none of the artifacts he'd collected as the Dark One could be termed harmless. "But, yes. Otherwise so mild even a child could use it."

*

Belle felt the weight of the medallion Rumpelstiltskin had given her before bedtime, reassured by it. The dream had started as usual, with her standing at the doorstep of the room they had chosen as a nursery.

She even heard a gurgle come from the crib, and she stepped forward, yearning for a glimpse of the child lying there.

This time, however, when the oppressive blanket of fear and barely leashed anger attempted to smother her, driving her away from the scene, Belle clutched onto the medallion and wished herself to withstand the onslaught.

In a moment, it was gone.

*

"Clever girl," said a voice in the shadows.

In real life, it would have taken Belle a while to recognize the speaker. In the dream, it was a matter of a second, and the knowledge brought an anxious knot to her throat. "You..."

"Indeed," confirmed the Black Fairy.

Belle willed her away, as she had the spell that had repelled her for so many nights, but the Black Fairy's reaction was a pitying stare.

"You may control your dreams, my dear," she told Belle as she stared her down, reaching out to pointedly rock the crib. "But not me."

*

Belle edged inside, fighting the insidious wave of terror that emanated from the intruder in her dream. She longed to rush between baby and fairy, but every step tried her strength. "What do you want?"

The Black Fairy glanced up. "To see the boy, of course." She swirled a hand over the crib, leaving a trail of silvery stardust, and a childish laugh responded gleefully. "He becomes stronger, the closer it gets to your time."

Belle cradled her round belly protectively. "You cannot have him."

"Oh, I can." The Black Fairy laughed. "But here and now, I don't want him."

*

Those words left Belle cold. "What do you mean?"

An elegant shrug. "It all comes down to timing, dear girl, and this dear one comes aeons too early to be of much use to me." Then her features softened, and her hands formed a small ball of light that hovered over the crib. "Nonetheless, I've anticipated this moment for so long, I couldn't resist coming to see him." A ghost of softness crossed her lips, revealing a glimpse of the woman she'd been. "I think I'm even glad, not to have to wait countless more centuries to meet a grandchild."

*

Belle knew that the other woman's wistfulness was real, just as she knew that the child in the room was the same she carried in her womb. The dreamscape felt too pure to allow any lies.

So pure that, added to her inability to eradicate the Black Fairy's presence, it gave her a clue as to its true source.

"We're in his dream, aren't we?"

"Well, well," the Black Fairy purred, lips curved with a trace of admiration. "Aren't you smart. What gave it away?"

"You are as welcome as I am. Only the innocent love so-"

"Unwisely?"

"No. Unconditionally."

*

The aloof facade cracked minutely. Just a quick shift of the eyes, which glanced away for a fraction of a second; perhaps the slightest downturn of that arrogant smile... Anyone else would have missed the change in mood, but Belle recognized the little tells of someone who was more uncomfortable with the notion of being loved, than truly scornful of it.

"My son likes you," she said softly.

The Black Fairy's expression was impenetrable again. "Of course he does. Our boys always do; they don't know how to stop themselves. Maybe that's why it's so easy to love them back."

*

If the Black Fairy were to show her heart, would it be as Rumpelstiltskin had described his own while cursed? A mass of unyielding darkness, with only the briefest flickers of light to sustain his humanity.

A light that the memory of a lost son had kept alive... Belle's good sense told her to dismiss the possibility. Rumpelstiltskin regretted letting go of Bae; the Black Fairy had mocked Rumple upon seeing him again.

"You never loved your child," Belle retorted, figuring she was safe while within neutral territory. "He told me everything. You abandoned him!"

The Black Fairy laughed. "Did I?"

*

"Let me tell you a story, my dear. You might relate, since it's a story of motherhood." The Black Fairy sat back, the mist behind her resolving into a chair, and motioned Belle to a second seat that rose close by. "A long time ago, a girl fell in love. Not with a perfect man, nor wise nor brave, not even a particularly well-liked man; but it was love all the same. Sounds familiar so far?"

Belle sat down gingerly, watching the Black Fairy closely, but saw no harm in answering that question. "Only if he loves the girl too."

*

"Oh, he did." A smile stole over the Black Fairy's expression, but the moment of fond remembrance was short lived. Between one heartbeat and the next, her eyes regained their bitter edge. "They loved each other so much, that true love was the end of them."

That pronouncement was capped with an eerie laughter that unsettled Belle, as she was familiar with the sound. Rumpelstiltskin laughed like that, sometimes, when he fretted that he'd never see his firstborn again.

The Black Fairy, however, mistook the reason for her confusion. "Ah, yes," she said. "Promised a tale of motherhood, didn't I?"

*

"Say you and your husband are happily expecting a child, and you bear a son, the most beautiful boy there ever was."

At her words, a shower of colored lights fell over the crib, making the features of the boy inside almost discernible to Belle.

"You love your boy beyond the telling of it. You love him so much that you do the impossible to keep him safe. Then someone says you did too much."

The lights died out, plunging the room into darkness before a baby's startled cry restored it to normal.

"Tell me, my dear, was that fair?"

*

Belle wasn't a stranger to the lies people told themselves to shift the blame of past mistakes. She also knew that those lies often held a grain of truth. "You... protected Rumple?" she said, feeling her way through a story so unlike what she'd expected. Then she shook her head, remembering what she'd witnessed the night Rumpelstiltskin had summoned his mother. "That can't be. You told him you'd chosen power over him."

The Black Fairy shot to her feet, her face a testament to millennia of rage. "The power that would have changed his life for the better!" she thundered.

*

A baby's soft weeping cut through the ensuing silence.

Just as abruptly, the anger retreated, and a hint of weariness settled upon the set of the Black Fairy's shoulders as she sat again.

"Such an old story," she sighed, waving a hand as if her words were of no importance. "A woman loves her baby boy, and she loses him; and the next time she sees him, he has learned to hate her." She met Belle's gaze, lips twisted into a scowl. "You were there, then. You heard what he said. Don't you understand why I had to punish him?"

*

The Black Fairy laughed at Belle's horror. " _No_ , you're thinking," she purred, tilting her head as if the new angle would allow her to read Belle's innermost thoughts. " _I'd never! I'll love my child to the end of time!_ " Her voice dripped with condescension. "Bah, what do you know, you who haven't seen even half a century. I mourned my babe a dozen times longer than you've drawn breath, just to lose him again before I recognized his face. You would learn to hate your child, too-" a hiss of underlying anger- "if he hurt you as I've been hurt."

*

Belle had defended her husband from worse accusations, always with the truth as her weapon of choice, so she didn't hesitate now. "He just wondered why you'd left him."

Anger flashed through the other woman's eyes, though a quick glance toward the crib held it under leash. "He can't have cared for the truth," she hissed. "He holds a power that was already legend when I was born, and all he unearthed were reasons to blame me for the past. Me!"

"You did leave Rumple," Belle pointed out.

"A matter of semantics," the Black Fairy said, "and not by choice."

*

The dream had yet to be weighed with lies. Belle took a deep breath, reminding herself that every story has two sides, and resolved to ask Rumpelstiltskin about his sources. "Why not just tell him this?"

"He'd have believed me?" The Black Fairy read Belle's reaction. "Exactly. He cast me as the villain, so that's what I became."

Belle stared, stunned. "If you couldn't be the parent you wanted to be, you would become the parent he needed," she whispered.

"You do understand."

"No." Those were Rumpelstiltskin's words, almost verbatim, when he explained those last months with Baelfire. "Not I."

*

"Why did you come, then?" Belle asked, conscious that her voice should remain level. Anger only fanned the bitterness of wounds inflicted lifetimes ago; old ghosts weren't put to rest by good intentions, but with hard work and the understanding that they might always crop back up unexpectedly. Even now, when she had little interest in the peace of mind of the other woman, and even less certainty that the Black Fairy deserved the effort, she tread with patience. "If you dislike Rumple so much, why come visit our son?"

The Black Fairy's face could have been carved in stone.

*

"You said you've been waiting for a grandchild," Belle insisted, "but why keep track of such an event at all, if you don't care for Rumple anymore."

"I had great plans for this child."

"And he's come too early for them. You just said that as well." Belle laid a hand on the pronounced swell of her belly, where her baby rested in the waking world. "I think you came to sow trouble," she said slowly, familiar with the ways of those who tripped into something good despite their original intentions, "but then you couldn't stay away for long, could you?"

*

The truth was that her child had welcomed his grandmother with the same wholehearted love as he did her. Accepting that helped Belle move to the heart of the dreamscape, having stopped resisting the will of the main dreamer. Finally able to stand over the crib, she gazed in amazement at her boy. "You are a wonder, little one."

The baby gurgled at her, and squealed happily when Belle reached in to lift him.

She stared at him, from the soft hair to his little, warm toes. He would have her nose and her husband's long fingers. "Hello, my Gideon."

*

Behind her, the Black Fairy scoffed. "That's not a family name," she protested, affronted. "You would name him after a stranger, and not his father?"

That had been the shortest argument Belle and Rumpelstiltskin ever had. "Rumple won't even hear of it."

Deep distaste crossed the other woman's face, settling into an appalled wrinkle of her nose. "Not that hideous moniker. I mean the name he'd have carried, if I'd been allowed to stay with him."

Belle kissed her son's forehead before answering, trusting the example he'd set and extending an olive branch of her own. "What name was that?"

 

The End  
06/01/18

Fanart by @nropay

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is love!


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